He’s an Olympic gold medal winner, driving force of much of the technology behind Team GB’s cycling successes and owner of a large successful bike brand.

But Chris Boardman is also a policy advisor to British Cycling and has been meeting the major mayoral candidates to find out more about their plans for two-wheeled transport around the capital.

Chris Boardman, winning Britain's first Olympic gold medal in cycling for 72 years in the 1992 Barcelona Games. Image under creative commons from John Swindells.

Speaking exclusively to Londonist, Boardman began the conversation from a surprising angle; he’s not wedded to the idea of promoting cycling as a means to solving the capital’s transport crisis.

“I’m not pro-cycling. I’m pro-common sense. There are 10,000 people a month coming to London and the transport system can’t respond.

“Cycling is a tool to do a job. If someone doesn’t like the plans [for increased cycling infrastructure], they should be forced to come up with a better way of solving the problem. The status quo is not an option.

“TfL isn’t building the cycle highways out of any sense of benevolence. There’s the equivalent of a tube-train load of people arriving each week and not leaving. The only method of keeping everyone moving is by getting them out of motorised vehicles.”

Labour mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan. Image: Khan's Facebook page.

He’s already met Caroline Pidgeon and Sadiq Khan, and has been trying to pin Zac Goldsmith down with mixed success.

“We’ve been trying to get a meeting in the diary for months and he’s finally come back this week with a very specific time and date; 11.30am one week from the election. As it happens, I can’t make that date so we’re going to try and get them to arrange a different one.”

Goldsmith published his transport manifesto last week and although they’ve not met, Boardman says he has studied the document. When asked what he made of it, his reply came back in the form of one word: “ambiguous”.

“David Cameron said he wanted cycling in the UK to rival the rest of Europe but this manifesto contains no promises, no actions and no money. Coupled with some other statements he’s made about cycling recently, I view him with a degree of suspicion.”

Boardman is noticeably more upbeat about the two candidates he’s met so far.

“Caroline’s [policies] are a natural fit when it comes to supporting cycling. Sadiq is bullish. He’s pledged to double TfL’s spend on cycling — they’re tangible things that you can measure them against.”

On criticisms that Sadiq Khan made cycling seem unsafe by not allowing his daughters cycle in London, Boardman said he agreed with his stance.

“The new segregated cycle superhighways are great, but letting kids cycle on London’s roads? No way. The future mayor has to think long and hard about changing the approach to this.”

Pidgeon has been an outspoken advocate for cycling as a London Assembly Member, was the first mayoral candidate to sign the London Cycle Campaign’s (LCC) call to make cycling safer and more enjoyable for people in the capital. She was voted joint winner of LCC’s cycling champion of the year in 2015 alongside Labour’s Val Shawcross.

Despite being pressed, Boardman wouldn’t rank the candidates on their policies until he’s had a chance to grill each of them — throwing a potential lifeline to Goldsmith.

“No, not yet. Not until I’ve heard from them all. And if they don’t answer, then that will be self evident.”

All three of the main candidates have praised the work of the current mayor, Boris Johnson, and all three have promised to build on his success: